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THE DOUBLE LIFE
THE DOUBLE LIFE
Mr. Alfred Burton, although he was blissfully and completely ignorant of the fact, stood at the door of Fate. He was a little out of breath and his silk hat was reclining at the back of his head. In his mouth was a large cigar which he felt certain was going to disagree with him, but he smoked it because it had been presented to him a few minutes ago by the client upon whom he was in attendance. He had rather deep-set blue eyes, which might have been attractive but for a certain keenness in thei
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Burton stood for a moment upon the threshold of the office, looking around him. A new and peculiar distaste for these familiar surroundings seemed suddenly to have sprung into life. For the first time he realized the intense ugliness of this scene of his daily labors. The long desk, ink-splashed and decrepit, was covered with untidy piles of papers, some of them thick with dust; the walls were hung with seedy-looking files and an array of tattered bills; there were cobwebs in every corner, gaps
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
There certainly was Ellen! Like a man on his way to prison, Alfred Burton took his place in a third-class carriage in his customary train to Garden Green. Ned Miles, who travelled in the oil trade, came up and smote him upon the shoulder. "Say, cocky, what have you been doing to yourself?" he demanded in amazement. "Have you robbed a bank and going about in disguise, eh? Why, the missis won't know you!" Burton shrank a little back in his place. His eyes seemed filled with some nameless distaste
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
Punctually at nine o'clock on the following morning, Alfred Burton, after a night spent in a very unsatisfactory lodging-house, hung up his gray Homburg on the peg consecrated to the support of his discarded silk hat, and prepared to plunge into his work. The office-boy, who had been stricken dumb at his senior's appearance, recovered himself at last sufficiently for speech. "My eye!" he exclaimed. "Whose clothes have you been stealing? What have you been up to, eh? Committing a burglary or a mu
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
Burton spent the rest of the day in most delightful fashion. He took the Tube to South Kensington Museum, where he devoted himself for several hours to the ecstatic appreciation of a small section of its treasures. He lunched off some fruit and tea and bread and butter out in the gardens, wandering about afterwards among the flower-beds and paying especial and delighted attention to the lilac trees beyond the Memorial. Towards evening he grew depressed. The memory of Ellen, of little Alfred, and
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
The clearness of vision which enabled Alfred Burton now to live in and appreciate a new and marvelous world, failed, however, to keep him from feeling, occasionally, exceedingly hungry. He lived on very little, but the weekly amount must always be sent to Garden Green. There came a time when he broke in upon the last five pound note of his savings. He realized the position without any actual misgivings. He denied himself regretfully a tiny mezzotint of the Raphael "Madonna," which he coveted for
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
At a little before ten on the following morning, Burton stood upon the pavement outside, looking with some amazement at the house in Wenslow Square. The notices "To Let" had all been torn down. A small army of paper-hangers and white-washers were at work. A man was busy fastening flower boxes in the lower windows. On all hands were suggestions of impending occupation. Burton mounted the steps doubtfully and stood in the hall, underneath a whitewasher's plank. The door of the familiar little room
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
Mr. Waddington called a taxicab. "I can't stand the Golden Lion any longer," he explained. "Somehow or other, the place seems to have changed in the most extraordinary manner' during the last week or so. Everybody drinks too much there. The table-linen isn't clean, and the barmaids are too familiar. I've found out a little place in Jermyn Street where I go now when I have time. We can talk there." Burton nodded. He was, as a matter of fact, intensely interested. Only a few weeks ago, his late em
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
"I do not think," the girl with the blue eyes said, diffidently, "that I gave you permission to sit down here." "I do not believe," Burton admitted, "that I asked for it. Still, having just saved your life—" "Saved my life!" "Without a doubt," Burton insisted, firmly. She laughed in his face. When she laughed, she was good to look upon. She had firm white teeth, light brown hair which fell in a sort of fringe about her forehead, and eyes which could be dreamy but were more often humorous. She wa
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
Burton travelled down to Garden Green on the following morning by the Tube, which he hated, and walked along the familiar avenue with loathing at his heart. There was no doubt about Ellen's being at home. The few feet of back yard were full of white garments of unlovely shape, recently washed and fluttering in the breeze. The very atmosphere was full of soapsuds. Ellen herself opened the door to him, her skirts pinned up around her, and a clothes-peg in her mouth. He greeted her with an effort a
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
The girl looked up from her seat wonderingly. His coming had been a little precipitate. His appearance, too, betokened a disturbed mind. "There is a front door," she reminded him. "There are also bells." "I could not wait," he answered simply. "I saw the flutter of your gown as I came along the lane, and I climbed the wall. All the way down I fancied that you might be wearing blue." A slight air of reserve which she had carefully prepared for him, faded away. What was the use? He was such an ext
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
Burton's life moved for a time among the easy places. The sub-editor of the Piccadilly Gazette, to which he still contributed, voluntarily increased his scale of pay and was insatiable in his demand for copy. Burton moved into pleasant rooms in a sunny corner of an old-fashioned square. He sent Ellen three pounds a week—all she would accept—and save for a dull pain at his heart which seldom left him, he found much pleasure in life. Then came the first little break in the clear sky. Mr. Waddingto
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
Burton did not get very far with his novel. About nine o'clock on the same evening, Mr. Waddington, who was spending a quiet hour or two with his books, was disturbed by a hasty knock at the door of his rooms. He rose with some reluctance from his chair to answer the summons. "Burton!" he exclaimed. Burton came quickly in. He was paler, even, than usual, and there were black shadows under his eyes. There was a change in his face, indescribable but very apparent. His eyes had lost their dreamy lo
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
A foretaste of autumn had crept into the midst of summer. There were gray clouds in the sky, a north wind booming across the moors. Burton even shivered as he walked down the hill to the house where she lived. There was still gorse, still heather, still a few roses in the garden and a glimmering vision of the beds of other flowers in the background. But the sun which gave them life was hidden. Burton looked eagerly into the garden and his heart sank. There was no sign there of any living person.
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
Crouched over his writing table, with sheets of manuscript on every side of him, Burton worked like a slave at his novel. After a week devoted by Mr. Waddington and himself to a fruitless search for the missing plant, they had handed the matter over to a private detective and Burton had settled down to make the most of the time before him. Day after day of strange joys had dawned and passed away. He had peopled his room with shadows. Edith had looked at him out of her wonderful eyes, he had felt
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
"I have decided," Edith remarked, stopping the swinging of the hammock with her foot, "to write and ask Mr. Bomford to come and spend the week-end here." Burton shook his head. "Please don't think of it," he begged. "It would completely upset me. I should not be able to do another stroke of work." "You and your work!" Edith murmured, looking down at him. "What about me? What is the use of being engaged if I may not have my fiancé come and see me sometimes?" "You don't want him," Burton declared,
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
The professor cleared his throat. "In the first place, Mr. Burton," he said, "I feel that I owe you an apology. I have taken a great liberty. Mr. Bomford here is one of my oldest and most intimate friends. I have spoken to him of the manuscript you brought me to translate. I have told him your story." Mr. Bomford scratched his side whiskers and nodded patronizingly. "It is a very remarkable story," he declared, "a very remarkable story indeed. I can assure you, Mr.—Mr. Burton, that I never liste
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
Dinner that evening was a curious meal, partly constrained, partly enlivened by strange little bursts of attempted geniality on the part of the professor. Mr. Bomford told long and pointless stories with much effort and the air of a man who would have made himself agreeable if he could. Edith leaned back in her chair, eating very little, her eyes large, her cheeks pale. She made her escape as soon as possible and Burton watched her with longing eyes as he passed out into the cool darkness. He ha
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
Burton slept that night under a gorse bush. He was no sooner alone on the great unlit Common with its vast sense of spaciousness, its cool silence, its splendid dome of starlit sky, than all his anger and disappointment seemed to pass away. The white, threatening faces of the professor and Mr. Bomford no longer haunted him. Even the memory of Edith herself tugged no longer at his heartstrings. He slept almost like a child, and awoke to look out upon a million points of sunlight sparkling in the
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
There came a time when Burton finished his novel. He wrapped it up very carefully in brown paper and set out to call upon his friend the sub-editor. He gained his sanctum without any particular trouble and was warmly greeted. "Why haven't you brought us anything lately?" the sub-editor asked. Burton tapped the parcel which he was carrying. "I have written a novel," he said. The sub-editor was not in the least impressed—in fact he shook his head. "There are too many novels," he declared. "I am af
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
The novel which was to bring immortal fame and, incidentally, freedom from all financial responsibilities, to Burton, came back within a week, with a polite note which he was at first inclined to accept as some consolation until he found that it was stereotyped. Within a few hours it was despatched to another firm of publishers, taken at random from the advertisement columns of the Times. An hour or two afterwards Alfred arrived, with no label around his neck, but a veritable truant. Of the two
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
Mr. Bomford in his town clothes was a strikingly adequate reflection of the fashion of the times. From the tips of his patent boots, his neatly tied black satin tie, his waistcoat with its immaculate white slip, to his glossy silk hat, he was an entirely satisfactory reproduction. The caretaker who admitted him to Burton's rooms sighed as she let him in. He represented exactly her ideal of a gentleman. "Mr. Burton and the little boy are both in the sitting-room, sir," she announced, opening the
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
To Burton, who was in those days an epicure in sensations, there was something almost ecstatic in the pleasure of that evening. They dined at a little round table in the most desirable corner of the room—the professor and Edith, Mr. Bomford and himself. The music of one of the most famous orchestras in Europe alternately swelled and died away, always with the background of that steady hum of cheerful conversation. It was his first experience of a restaurant de luxe. He looked about him in amazed
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
It had been a dinner of celebration. The professor had ransacked his cellar and produced his best wine. He had drunk a good deal of it himself—so had Mr. Bomford. A third visitor, Mr. Horace Bunsome, a company promoter from the city, had been even more assiduous in his attentions to a particular brand of champagne. Burton had been conscious of a sense of drifting. The more human side of him was paramount. The dinner was perfect; the long, low dining-room, with its bowls of flowers and quaint dec
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CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXV
Burton gave a little start of surprise as he entered Mr. Waddington's office. Seated on the chair usually occupied by clients, was Ellen. "My dear Burton," Mr. Waddington exclaimed, with an air of some relief, "your arrival is most opportune! Your wife has just paid me a visit. We were discussing your probable whereabouts only a moment ago." "Rooms all shut up," Ellen declared, "and not a word left behind nor nothing, and little Alfred come down with a messenger boy, in such a mess as never was!
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
Mr. Waddington turned his head away quickly and glanced half guiltily towards his companion. To his amazement, Burton had been gazing in the same direction. Their eyes met. Burton coughed. "A remarkably fine woman, that," Mr. Waddington declared. Burton looked at him in astonishment. "My dear Mr. Waddington!" he exclaimed. "You cannot really think so!" They both turned their heads once more. The woman in question was standing upon the doorstep of a milliner's shop, waiting for a taxicab. In appe
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CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII
With his hat at a very distinct angle indeed, with a fourpenny cigar, ornamented by a gold band, in his mouth, Burton sat before a hard-toned piano and vamped. "Pretty music, The Chocolate Soldier," he remarked, with an air of complete satisfaction in his performance. Miss Maud, who was standing by his side with her hand laid lightly upon his shoulder, assented vigorously. "And you do play it so nicely, Mr. Burton," she said. "It makes me long to see it again. I haven't been to the theatre for h
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CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXVIII
Edith slipped out of her evening cloak and came into the foyer of the Opera House, a spotless vision of white. For a moment she looked at her cavalier in something like amazement. It did not need the red handkerchief, a corner of which was creeping out from behind his waistcoat, to convince her that some extraordinary change had taken place in Burton. He was looking pale and confused, and his quiet naturalness of manner had altogether disappeared. He came towards her awkwardly, swinging a pair o
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CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXIX
There was considerable excitement in Laurence Avenue when a few mornings later Mr. Alfred Burton, in a perfectly appointed motor-car, drew up before the door of Clematis Villa. In a very leisurely manner he descended and stood looking around him for a moment in the front garden. "Poky little place," he said half to himself, having completed a disparaging survey. "Hullo, Johnson! How are you?" Mr. Johnson, who, with a little bag in his hand, had just trudged a mile to save a penny, looked with so
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